You think you know someone. After so many years, you think you know everything there is to know.
I thought I knew everything out my ancestor Lemuel Kessler. Family tradition said he was the son of a blacksmith who migrated from Worms (Germany) to Philadelphia, he was a liquor distributor until the "blue laws" made it too difficult to do such work, and he and his wife for a time ran a rooming house for Wanamaker Department Store employees (presumably at the direction of Wanamaker himself!). Years of research revealed Lemuel was actually the son of a Pennsylvania-born comb-maker, not a German blacksmith. But he did show up as a "liquor dealer" in the 1860 census, a salesman by 1870, and in 1880 the census displayed Lemuel and his family with a long list of roomers who were "clerks in store." He doesn't appear with his family in the 1900 census. We know from his 1901 death notice he was on a business trip when he died. That's about all I knew and, frankly, I wasn't questioning it much as I focused on finding his father's father--always searching for the next branch on the tree.
Still, Lemuel Kessler is a rare enough name there was no reason not to find out more. I knew of one other Lemuel Kessler in the records who showed up in the Ohio Valley while mine was in Philadelphia. And I was frustrated by a Lemuel O. Kessler (or L.O. Kessler) in New York who inserted himself into my searches of New York records (my Lemuel died in Pine Hills, New York in 1901 while on a business trip) and New Jersey records because the other Lemuel purchased and sold real estate in Bayonne and that area. The NY Lemuel (Lemuel O) was also charged with perjury once in Philadelphia so he had a tendency to muddle my results there as well.
I don't know what it was that suddenly made me question my assumptions about Lemuel Kessler. Whatever it was, a week ago I went back to his newspaper death notice and re-read it. The announcement did not say he was on a business trip--rather, it said "Mr. Kessler had been spending considerable time in New York of late, where he was interested in building operations." I then went back to the 1900 census and looked at Lemuel O. Kessler living in Westchester County, New York. He was born the same year as my Lemuel, in Pennsylvania, occupation "builder," and a roomer in a boardinghouse. He was listed as a widower. His wife, Mary Elizabeth Kessler, was back in New Jersey in 1900 listed as married but her husband was no where to be seen.
Next, I looked in the newspaper real estate section at the properties Lemuel O. purchased in/near Bayonne, NJ, and Yonkers, NY in the late 1890's. Turns out some of it was later sold (by Lemuel before he died) to his son in law, while his widow Mary E. sold the remainder after his 1901 death. So, all along, this Lemuel O. I'd rejected was actually my guy, I just rejected him because he didn't fit the picture I expected--or the picture I wanted to see.
Over the next 12 hours after "seeing the light," I traced Lemuel back through time in Philadelphia. Newspapers and city directories (yes, I'd reviewed them all before but with a closed mind). They now revealed the career of a man who was willing to work hard and take risks to support his family, but who didn't always have the best of luck.
Lemuel's career began around the time he got married in 1858-1859. He first appears in the City Directory in 1859 as a liquor dealer, and is variously described as a liquor agent, salesman, or "rectifier" (distiller) until 1871. But the problem that drove Lemuel from this business wasn't as much any local regulation as it was his relationship with East-coast businessman-politician-criminal George Mountjoy. Mountjoy was the target of several Federal investigations for avoiding the revenue laws (taxes on liquor). Lemuel’s partnership with Mountjoy went too far when both were arrested in April 1868. The charges against Lemuel must have been dropped for only Mountjoy went to trial. He was found not guilty that time, but Mountjoy was arrested again in 1869, convicted, and sent to prison for a while. In July 1868 the Philadelphia Public Ledger carried a notice of the dissolution of the partnership of George Mountjoy and Lemuel O. Kessler.
What next? Lemuel found another entrepreneurial partner, Thomas or William Corney. In early 1872 the two were named on a patent for a fountain pen. Later that year, as "Kessler & Co.," they purchased a New Jersey complex called the Prallsville Mills. The Prallsville venture could have been Lemuel's big break. But of course nothing went right for this guy. In 1874 the mill burned. After, it appears Kessler & Co. sold at least part of the complex (the mills) and continued to operate the quarries. Sources list Lemuel through the 1870's as associated with stone, quarries, and contracting (stone). But the property sale after the fire was contentious. Lemuel was sued in New Jersey by a man named W.A. Ballie over a mortgage deal in 1875. The same Ballie came over to Philadelphia and lodged the perjury charge against Lemuel. The charge was ultimately dismissed in early 1880 but perhaps the damage was done. Lemuel's stone career was over.
Within months of the perjury charge Lemuel and his family were operating a boarding house at 1405 Locust Street in Philadelphia. Actually, his wife Mary E. ran the boarding house and appeared in the City Directory herself from 1880-1882. Lemuel appeared only once, with the occupation "mining"(?). In 1883 they moved to a house at 2016 N. 13th where Lemuel was listed as a "contractor" for the next ten years. He was there every year except 1883 when Mary was there identified as a "widow." Something was wrong. They all disappeared from Philadelphia in 1894 and reappeared in Merchantville, New Jersey, in 1897. But judging by his real estate dealings, Lemuel may have been in New York since 1895 or even earlier.
Whether or not I ever discover Lemuel's precise movements after 1894 I have learned something from this experience. You may think you know someone, but you may have to think again!
The announcement at right says that as of July 1st, “the copartnership heretofore exiting between” Mountjoy and L.O. Kessler under the firm of Mountjoy & Kesser “is this day dissolved by mutual consent.” It further says all debts of the firm will be paid by Mountjoy.
